A Russian Telegram channel with over 700,000 followers is spreading disinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine under the guise of providing "objective information" and fact-checking fake news. Its influence extends beyond the platform, with major Russian publications, government officials, and journalists citing the page's posts. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government. Unlike Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter, which run very public anti-disinformation programs, Brooking said: "Telegram is famously lax or absent in its content moderation policy." Emerson Brooking, a disinformation expert at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, said: "Back in the Wild West period of content moderation, like 2014 or 2015, maybe they could have gotten away with it, but it stands in marked contrast with how other companies run themselves today." He said that since his platform does not have the capacity to check all channels, it may restrict some in Russia and Ukraine "for the duration of the conflict," but then reversed course hours later after many users complained that Telegram was an important source of information.
from cn
